A Visitor

On 11 November, Ampangan Woh’s center was excited to welcome Marina Mahathir, the daughter of Malaysia’s former prime minister – to whom I was introduced back in March by her cousin, who lives in the U.S. and is my aunt’s sister-in-law. Over the course of the previous week, the older generation of the community here was very excited about her visit, and questioned and questioned me about what she would talk about, and when she would be coming. When the day arrived, I traveled to Tapah – the nearest town – to meet Marina and her husband, Tara. They reached Tapah in the early afternoon, and together we drove up into the jungle. Tara especially couldn’t stop commenting on how beautiful the area was, and how unbelievable it is that such a rural place could exist just two hours from Kuala Lumpur. On our way, they questioned me about the village, the people, and especially the kinds of problems they face here.

When we finally made it up to the village – after a few tight squeezes with motorbikes on the tiny mountain road – we unloaded the car. Marina and Tara had brought two huge packages of food and goodies for the families, as well as bags of coloring books and other school supplies for the kiddos. With the help of one of my students who happened to drive up just as we did, we carried everything over the bridge and up the hill to the house/classroom. We found many of the women gathered just outside, waiting for us. I noticed that they were all dressed in their nicest clothes. They followed us inside and were joined by quite a gathering, including many guests from the other side of the village – the ones who are usually unwilling to mix with the people on my side and rarely join our events (in my head I sometimes call them star-bellied sneetches, as in: “on Tuesday and Thursday nights I have my star-bellied sneetches class”). We prepared tea and cookies, and everyone began chatting, introducing themselves to Marina and Tara with confidence that I had never seen in them before. After a while the men politely asked Tara to join them on their side of the room, so he left Marina and me with the ladies and crossed over to sit with them. From what I could tell from my sneaky glances over, my advancing level of Bahasa, and the comments from the men after they left, they were very taken with him. A professional photographer, he kept snapping pictures of them, and I was shocked to see that they posed and flashed smiles – they never do that for me!

Meanwhile, Marina, the ladies of the village, and I were chatting about the village and the house itself, talking about the amenities that we have – she was surprised to find that we have a TV (although it doesn’t get any signal and functions only as a DVD player) – and a bit about the Semai lifestyle. Marina was also curious about the English and computer classes we hold, and was asking a couple of my students about them, and about their reasons for studying English. After a few hours of conversation, Marina and Tara, not wanting to get caught in the rain that was almost definitely on its way, started to head out. Everyone said goodbye to them, and encouraged them to return, and a couple of people walked across the bridge to the car with them to see them off. It was so nice to see the village respond so well to visitors – I was amazed at the confidence they showed, especially because most guests, while very much welcomed, are usually met with shyness. It was impressive to see them show so much self-confidence!

The Ampangan Woh ladies with Marina and me